The Storm Without (20 page)

I rolled the cigarette's filter along my tongue. Some blood had stuck to the paper; it was thick, gelatinous. I knew I'd been holding the cigarette too long. One more draw and I'd take burning embers of the foul tobacco into my mouth. I pinched my lips and spat the cig into the wet ground.

‘What about Lyn, did you not think what this would do to her?’

Gilmour seemed halted by the thought. ‘Lyn’s nothing to me.’ He let a thin smile creep up his face. ‘What are you playing at, Michie, sniffing around my cast-offs?’

‘She was too good for you.’

He laughed, looked at me and pointed a finger. ‘And I thought you were just after a piece of me!’ Gilmour started to move his hips, drew an imaginary female form towards his groin and swayed into it. ‘Mind you, she was quite the goer back then, our Lyn.’

‘Shut the hell up, Gilmour.’ My blood surged as I stared at him: laughing and gyrating. I yelled out, ‘Christ knows what she saw in you … you’re the worst kind of trash.’

He continued to grind his hips, to laugh and wink at me. ‘Oh, Michie, I was a bit of rough, don’t you know anything? Some women like that, and by God our Lyn liked it rough … As rough as she could get it.’

I turned my gaze away, because anything else was playing into his hands.

Gilmour wandered around but kept a firm stare on me all the while. He seemed to be enjoying himself, like he’d actually achieved something. As if his having me tied up was akin to basking in the reflection of a trophy. I followed his gaze, let my eyes burn into him, but it had little affect. He was wrapped up in the sense of his own power. It was a dangerous place for a man to be — and even more dangerous for me. I needed to do something to stop him prancing round his kill; I had to puncture his ego if I was to have had any hope of survival.

I lit the fuse and retreated. ‘What the hell is this place anyway?

He looked above my head, then rattled the shackles that held my hands — a bolt of pain shot through my injured arm — I winced as he spoke. ‘Now there’s a question. And I thought you were the man with all the answers, Michie.’

He was toying with me, like a cat with a mouse. I let my eyes flit about the place, try to find some kind of way out. ‘Enlighten me … indulge me, even. Or, don’t you know where we are? … Just doing what you’re told, Gilmour?’

He ran a hand down the solid stone wall; it was dripping wet. When he removed his hand a layer of thick green slime sat on the surface of his palm. He leaned towards me and wiped the mess down the side of my face. ‘This is an old smugglers’ hold. The town’s full of them … don’t you know anything, Michie?’

I tried to pull away from his hand; the smell made my stomach turn. ‘Are you off your head? There’s not that many of the old holds in the town.’ I remembered reading about the old caverns in my schooldays. The place was littered with them and new ones were always cropping up. The chances of me being found were slim, but I had to pretend otherwise. I scanned the damp walls, felt the cold bite in my lungs. ‘How long do you think it’ll take the police to find me here? You would have been better tying me up at the Auld Brig. The tourists love it there as well, I hear.’

Gilmour closed his eyes for a moment then opened them wide and stared out into the blackness. ‘No-one in this town knows the half of it. The whole place is sleepwalking, in a trance they are.’ He turned around, put his wide eyes on me, their whites stood out in the darkness of the cavern like burning match-tips. ‘I’ve got close on a million’s worth of gear stashed within minutes of the Port.’

I shook my head, turned away from him and tried to act dismissive. ‘And you expect me to believe that? You’re all talk, mate.’

‘What?’ He bit. I’d got to him.

‘All talk, you always were.’ I rattled the shackles above my head. ‘Come on then, untie me, show me this million’s worth of a stash!’

He smacked his hip and raised a finger towards me. ‘Do you think I button up the back … think I’m going to fall for that kind of thing?’

I turned down the corners of my mouth. ‘So there’s no stash, then … eh?’

He approached me, laughing. As he reached my side he put up his hand. It was still wet with the slime from the wall; he gripped my cheeks. ‘I can tell you about my business now, Michie … do you know why?’

I tried to pull my face out of his grip. ‘Get off me.’

‘I can tell you anything I like because I know you’ll never get out of here.’ He pushed my head against the wall and retreated. ‘At least, not in any kind of state to talk about it.’

He started to laugh as I lunged forward, rattling the chains.

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said.

‘Oh, believe it,’ he laughed on. ‘You’re through, Michie. Take a good look around because this is the last you’ll see of this life.’

I spat at him. He stepped away, mocked me, clearly out of reach.

‘Now, now … temper.’

I spat again and it disappeared into the blackness. ‘Well if you’ve got this stash … why can’t I see any of it in here?’

He walked in front of me and held up the storm lantern. His eyes thinned now; his face took on a ghostly yellow sheen. ‘You couldn’t store anything in here.’

‘Why? … Why not? Because you have nothing …’

He lowered the lantern and the intensity of his eyes shone again, ‘Well, for a start … this one floods!’

The thought put an icy needle in my heart. ‘Floods?’

‘Every high-tide. The water comes right up to the top.’ He raised the lantern, tapped on the roof of the cavern, to emphasise his point.

My pulse raced. The anger in me started to subside and was replaced with something close to fear. It wasn’t a fear for my own life but for the fact that Gilmour might get away with my murder on top of everything else.

He turned over his wrist, looked at his watch. I knew he was milking it, watching my fear and savouring it. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to be getting along, mate.’ He smiled as he looked up. ‘High-tide coming.’

I felt my breath shorten. ‘Think about what you’re doing,’ I said. ‘You say you didn’t kill the girl, then what’s this?’

Gilmour let out a low laugh. ‘It’s payback, Michie. Plain and simple.’ He was smiling as he turned from me.

‘Gilmour!’

His footfalls echoed with small splashes as he walked away from me, the light from the lantern dimming every step of the way. I struggled with the shackles, pulled as hard as I could. I felt the pain in my injured arm bite once again but I pushed it aside.

‘Gilmour!’ I called louder now. I felt the veins on the sides of my head might pop as I struggled in the waning light. ‘Gilmour!’

As the hold fell into darkness I heard the sound of a latch being loosened, then a hinge creaking. The next noise I heard was a trapdoor closing, and then the sound of soil being heaped from a shovel stretched into near silence. Soon, the only sound I could make out was the hard pumping of my heart upon my ribcage.

Claustrophobia came to me as the strangest sensation. Suddenly and completely. I felt buried alive, starved of oxygen, suffocating. I knew I was letting my imagination run riot but I couldn’t do a thing about it. I was trapped and the outside world seemed as remote as another galaxy.

I tugged again and again at the shackles on my wrists. I tried to pull them from the wall but they were solid, secure. My wrists started to ache, and then the bare one bled. I struggled on, but it was futile.

The water dripping on the walls now felt uncomfortable on my back. I imagined black trails engulfing me, but it didn’t happen. An hour passed and nothing happened. I called out, roared. My throat grew sore, my voice hoarse. I developed a pattern: I called out, then waited for a reply. Not even an echo came. The only sound was the dripping of water in the low pools and puddles of the ground and the scurrying rats. They stayed away at first but soon they came to sniff around my boots.

I swore. I kicked out at them and they retreated but they always came back.

‘Away … go!’ No matter how hard I shouted the rats returned, likely drawn by the blood from my wrist.

When all that came was the rats, and no tide waters, I started to think Gilmour had fooled me, that the high-tide was all a scare and that I would be slowly devoured by more and more rats and then as quickly as they appeared they were gone.

‘What do they know that I don’t?’ I said to the walls of the hold.

In a few moments, I got my answer.

As if a tap had been turned, water flowed into the hold. By the bucketful.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

The soles of my feet were quickly covered.

‘No. Please … Tell me this isn’t happening.’ Nothing seemed real now. Holy mother of God.

Someone had once called me on my religious beliefs. My old friend Tommy had been devout as it suited him and told me that when the odds were against you, when all else seemed lost, everyone prayed. I’d doubted him, but now I experienced the truth of those words.

‘Oh God above …’

As the water lapped at my heels, I prayed. As it reached my knees, swallowed my thighs and encircled my waist in its freezing-cold grasp, I prayed. When the water passed my stomach I called out to the patron of lost causes, Saint Jude, and begged for his help. But no-one heard my pleas. No-one answered my prayers. No-one came.

As the water reached my chest, started to exert an intense pressure on my ribs, I started to lose the will to fight.

I felt beyond cold. Beyond freezing. Every bone, every fibre of my being cried out in agony. I grew drowsy, fell in and out of brief spells of catalepsy. My ties to the world seemed to be shifting. I lost all sense of self; imagined I was floating out to sea, towards the sun.

The water was calm there, as warm as a bath. Now, even as I shivered, I felt a warm glow. I seemed to leave my mortal body, and float further out to sea. I was heading towards the sunset.

Friends were calling me, old friends.

Voices I knew, voices I loved.

‘Doug …’

I couldn’t answer. I was paralysed in a dreamworld.

‘Doug …’

They kept calling.

‘Doug, are you there?’

They re-named me Lazarus in the hospital ward. The doctors said they had never seen anyone with lower vital signs when they brought me in. It was a miracle I was alive, apparently. I thought they were laying on the religious significance a bit thick. I
’
d told no-one about the prayers, I was just glad to be alive.

I had both my arms in bandages now. I had a wrapper like Rab C
’
s on my head, and a couple of drips that went everywhere with me; even the bathroom. I felt weak, drained, but like I said, glad to be feeling anything at all.

The nursing staff were playing up to me; I
’
d become a bit of a local celebrity since The Post printed my story. I liked to read the opener at least a dozen times a day:

AN AYRSHIRE man is recovering in hospital after a dramatic rescue from a long-forgotten smugglers
’
hold that also unlocked a murder investigation and prompted a probe into Council, Port and Police authorities.

When I say I read the opener, the rest of the article usually followed. I liked to be reminded that Gilmour was in custody and facing charges for the murder of Kirsty Donald, and my own attempted murder. Likewise, it was good to see the pictures of Councillor Crawford with his coat pulled over his face as he was led away for questioning. The great and good of the Auld Toun had a full-scale gutting coming their way, and I couldn
’
t wait to raise a glass to that.

I folded the newspaper down its centre, turned the pages over once again
—
the creases were well-established now
—
and slotted in snugly to the bedside cabinet beside my bottle of Lucozade and the old Alistair MacLean novel I
’
d liberated from the common area. As I eased my broken body back towards the soft white pillows, and tight, crisp linen that kept me in bed I felt my heart kick with the sight of a familiar face.

Lyn stood at the end of my bed. As I stared at her my thoughts alighted on what Crawford had called her. He
’
d said she was a slut, a slag. I didn
’
t want to ever think of Lyn that way, but I knew Crawford had sown the seed of doubt in me and I still hated him for that. Almost as much as I hated Gilmour for completing her character assassination in the cavern.

She spoke, softly:
‘
Hello, Doug
…’
As I drew my focus away I realised there was someone with her. A tall, rangy youth I hadn
’
t recognised.
‘
This is Glenn.
’

The boy took his mother
’
s introduction as a cue to become animated. He stepped forward and held out a hand.
‘
I wanted to say, y
’
know, thanks.
’

I looked at the boy. His hair sat in tufts on his head. His eyes were wide and welcoming. He wore a Superdry T-shirt under a checked shirt. I didn
’
t know what I had expected but Glenn looked just like every other young lad I passed on the street; it made me smile, even though I knew he was Jonny Gilmour
’
s son.